


Where my demons hide

by Thaum



Series: Of elves and men [2]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Bard is just human after all, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Just Friendship?, Our Elvenking is a wild thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 18:34:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14118408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thaum/pseuds/Thaum
Summary: He was sure, his life was too short to ever experience something alike ever again. And he would never forget.Bard gets overwhelmed by a sight to behold when the Elvenking saves his ass and steals his breath away within the same disturbing moments.





	Where my demons hide

**Author's Note:**

> English isn't my first language. Be nice.

Bard, King of Dale, was sure, that he wouldn't be able to forget a single second of the last moments of the finally won skirmish. They had fought for their lives, and it had been a very close affair. The bodies of men and elves, but mostly orcs, scattered the ground. He relived it again and again in his mind: his captain impaled by an especially disgusting enemy, falling off his horse. A good two dozen of them closing on him while he was trying to keep them away with his sword. The smell of blood and death and a foul stench in the air that made his insides turn.

Then the Elvenking crashed into the clearing and Bard was sure, that time stopped for a few seconds because otherwise, he had to be dead now. He couldn't help but actually freeze to the spot. Never before had he seen anything like the vision in front of him. And he was sure, his life was too short to ever experience something alike ever again. If an angel of death existed, that had to be how he looked like. He did not know when or why, but Thranduil had got rid of his armour and sat, clad only in his black tunics and trousers, saddleless, on a huge also coal black destrier. He seemed to wear a crown of moonlight, which reflected in his silver hair, that hang loose to his waist, and he held his sword, seemingly carelessly, dropped by his side. There was no doubt, who the King of those Woodlands was, they were standing on. Bard still couldn't move and found himself wasting precious time on thoughts about how he had never known the meaning of the word feral before. Or lethal. _Or beautiful._ Some part of his logical mind told him, that he should finally _do something_ , that he should be relieved of the arrival of an ally in his clearly miserable situation, and stop staring and start fighting, but for reasons unknown to him he couldn't. Suddenly he became aware of the increasing cold and the abnormal silence. He saw his breath condense in front of his face and mist began to rise off the ground and from between the trees of the clearing. The only sound he heard was his freaking heartbeat which thundered in his ears. He felt like the rabbit in front of the snake, unable to move while literally scared shitless. And he realized, the orcs - who seemed to have a similiar epiphany at the very moment - had little to do with it.

Then Thranduil turned his face to look into his direction and the orcs surrounding them. And hell broke loose.

Bard had little time to react because he almost got thrown off his horse as it panicked. He remembered a strangled sound that escaped his throat before he came to his wits and slammed his sword into the unlucky orc, that just appeared in front of him. He managed to slice the throat of one more, before he got hit by something or someone he couldn't see from behind and fell to the ground. Before he could get up, an orc was upon him trying to stab him with a broken spear and biting off any part he could reach. The damned beast was probably double his size and pressed the air out of his lungs. He felt teeth at his neck while he desperately tried to free his hands and breath. Suddenly the heavy weight at his chest was gone, as the Elvenking tore the stinking creature away and crushed it in a flowing movement at a tree with an ugly sound. It had been the last orc standing. In mere seconds - it could not have been much longer - all the orcs had been cut down by brute force of nature with the elven blade that he felt at his own throat now. He sucked in a urgently needed breath and stared panting and wide eyed at the demon standing above him in the mist. While smeared in blood and a little pale, his face was as etheral as Bard remembered. Well, half of it. The other half was something out of a burned nightmare. With a blind eye and muscle and skin molten into a mass scarring his elegant features unrecognizable. Bard couldn't take his eyes off and swallowed hard while the sword still pierced at his skin. He should say something. Anything. Break the spell, or he knew, he wouldn't live. "Stop it! It 's me, please.." His voice was a weak croak as he tried to back away.

The wild expression of the elf changed into something akin to recognition and he took his sword down in a swift movement. Then he took a hasty step back and let it fell to the ground where it clattered against a rock. Something shifted and the woods around them became different. Less threatening and.. _normal_ again. "I.. I am sorry, I didn't mean to..I.. " he lifted his hand to his face and looked then at his long fingers as if he saw them for the first time.

Bard watched them as well as they started to tremble and realized, that the burning didn't just cover half of his face. Thranduils facial features dropped completely and were now truly shocked as he retreated another several steps and turned away. A few moments later he regained his composure and straigthened himself up to his imposing height. When he looked at Bard again, his scars were gone and his eyes unreadable.

"Forgive me. I am sorry you had to see this. I didn't mean to frighten you.." he stopped and creased his brow, stepped closer and knelt next to the bewildered human, looking still uncomfortable. "And surely I didn't mean to hurt you."

Bard was trying hard to process everything, that just had been happening. "What?"

"You are bleeding."

Bard ran his hand over his throat and stared blankly at the little trail of blood and then back into the eyes of the man before him. "I am bleeding? What the.. You saved my ass. I don't care if I am bleeding. What the hell was that?" He took all his courage and reached out to graze his slightly shaking fingertips carefully over the side of the Elvenkings stern face. He allowed it and it felt cool and as smooth as it looked. "What the hell is _that_.. is it real?"

Thranduil grasped his hand and pulled it gently but determined away. "Real is, what we believe to be real."

Bard pondered the answer. "And seeing is believing?"

The Elvenking smiled lightly and stood, looking down at him. "Do you believe everything you see?"

"Well, when I saw you there in the moonlight, I hardly believed, you were real at all." He meant to jest, but his wavering voice betrayed him and thoughtful deep blue eyes bore into unsteady green ones.

"You surely didn't doubt it, when I killed this ugly thing that tried to eat you alive."

Bard laughed and fingered the minor cut at his throat. "No," he mumbled, "thank the Valar. In fact, you seemed extremely real to me then."

When the elf slowly lowered his hand to help him up, Bard knew, that he would never be able to forget the way that touch felt. And the image that had burned itself into his memory forever.

_Extremely real. And in a disturbing way, so very beautiful, nonetheless._


End file.
